Today my sweet wife turns 29. I honestly can’t imagine my life without her. She is my best friend, my children’s mother, my sounding board, my confidant. At a ballgame, at the movies, sitting on the couch watching Raymond…it doesn’t matter. I have more fun with her than anyone else. Making her smile is still one of the best things about my life.

I’ve said this before, but it’s the best way I know to describe her to you: she’s the truest person I’ve ever known. She is always genuine, always honest, always sincere. Like Nathanael, there’s no guile in her. And when you’re loved by someone like that — so wholly and completely — it does something to you. You become a better person, a more loving person, just by association. Or maybe osmosis. Who knows.

Here’s a better way to say what I feel: The Bible calls Eve the mother of all the living. Well, Sunny is my Eve, for the part of me that knows how to love and how to be loved came to life when I met her. Her love for me served as a conduit for God’s love in a time when I needed it so desperately. Without her, I wouldn’t know what love was.

I know she deserves so much more. She deserves to have someone write her sonnets. Instead, she got me.

I know who got the better end of that deal.

Sunny Anne, you are the embodiment of God’s grace to me. Your love is the anchor of our family. I’m eternally grateful for your life and your presence in my life. As I read back over these words, they fall so short of what I want to say to you on this day. But these words are all I have. Just know this: I love you and I always will.